Playoffs! You wanna talk about playoffs?! Ya kiddin me?... Except not this time

What a day yesterday turned out to be! Unbelievable. Playoff implications, rain, senior day, and a team who ruined our season last year, all on one field. So last blog I explained what exactly was on the line for yesterday's game. Win and your in, three seed automatically, playing Geneseo next weekend for the two seed. Lose and next weekend would basically be a must win. The lesson yesterday that I think was clearly evident, was when playing in-conference games you should throw out all the earlier box scores and statistics, because it does not mean crap. On paper, are we the better team, with record and statistics to show it? Yes. Would that make Brockport bend over and surrender to us? Certainly not. They knew what they accomplished last season, after defeating us allowed them to earn the 4th seed in the conference tournament while knocking us out with the tiebreaker, and they were determined to do it again.
With weather not particularly on our side, it was going to be a battle of wills. With warm-ups going quite similar to that of Potsdams, I was taking back when I realized how much trash-talking they were capable of. With a first quarter much similar to that of the Potsdam game, worrisome emotions were starting to awake. 5-1 at the end of the first quarter resulted completely in time of possession heavily favored by them, sloppy defense, and a sloppy start at the X by myself. Fighting back in the second, hard rides, face-off wins, and transition play are what really closed the gap for us. Always down by one or two it was always a nail biter. Back and forth we rallied in the second half, until huge saves, I mean HUGE -like enormous- like mammoth, saves by Gordie are what kept us alive and fighting to the end. With our attack really taking advantage of their skill sets, we were able to generate most of our offense through them. Sophomore Anthony Pafundi with an over hand high to low shot is what tied it up at 9, with about 3 minutes left. Even with the ensuing face-off victory, it was still not enough to keep us out of overtime. Overtime was nerve racking. Both teams had possessions during the 4 minute period, and with a shot by Travers that was an inch or "post" away from being the game winner, we were heading to double OT. In double overtime and the face-off possession, I remember just running off, taking a knee, and feeling my stomach twist and turn as I watched on. It was probably a two minute possession until Kildo, using his strength and quickness, backed into their largest defensemen and with a couple of quick rocker turns shot a lefty bouncer right past the goalie's hips. Game-Set-Blouses. And here is what happened next...

 

 

I think you get the idea. It felt just amazing. Personally it has been the main goal and I almost want to say expectation, since my class arrived. Make playoffs. "You guys are a young team, who when you are junior and seniors will be a very good team." Well we are that very good team right now. However, with all feelings sky high right now, we must come back down and focus on the entire next week. We have a huge out of conference game against RPI, who has been in and out of the top 20 the entire season.

With a ton of work to do right now, I do not have time to talk about senior day and the three guys it was shared with in this blog. I will make a blog dedicated to the three of us, similar to how DeFran did for his class, but maybe I will do that when the season is officially over, because right now we are not going anywhere. So stay tuned for that. I am also getting good footage for the "I play Lacrosse because" video, and I plan to have that out pretty soon. 

Until next time... Mike Santi #12